Faculty: Mitchell Newman (violin)

Violinist Mitchell Newman retired from the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2020. During his 34-year career, he worked with many of the world’s great conductors including music directors Andre Previn, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel and guest conductors Simon Rattle, Kurt Sanderling, Herbert Blomstedt, Thomas Wilkins, Eric Leinsdorf, Zubin Mehta, Emmanuelle Haim, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Simone Young and Valery Gergiev.

A passionate advocate for bringing music to underserved communities, Newman founded “Harmony: Music for Mental Health,” a chamber music/fundraising concert for Mental Health America Long Beach. In 2010 he was named a mental health hero by the California State Senate. In 2015 he started “Coming Home to Music” which brings concerts of classical chamber music and jazz concerts to people who were experiencing homelessness, now living in apartment complexes built by People Assisting the Homeless (PATH). Through his close friendship with MacArthur Grant Awardee and Street Symphony founder Vijay Gupta, Newman has played many concerts for people living in Los Angeles’ Skid Row and those in incarcerated communities.

Also a dedicated teacher, Newman was deeply involved in the LA Phil’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) program providing its students private lessons, master classes, and conducting string sectionals. For more than a decade he planned, curated, conducted, and hosted, in English and Spanish, an annual concert featuring YOLA students and LA Philharmonic members playing side-by-side. Newman occasionally travels to Mexico to give master classes and perform fundraising concerts for the Benning Academy. The Academy builds outstanding music conservatories and provides free lessons and instruments to Mexico’s most needy children in their neighborhoods. Newman has also taught at the Colburn School and conducted the string ensemble at the Pascale Music Institute, leading the ensemble in a concert at Carnegie Hall in 2017.

Newman is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, studying violin with Aaron Rosand, David Cerone and Yumi Ninomiya. He studied chamber music with Karen Tuttle, Felix Galamir and Mischa Schneider. At the Meadowmount School for Strings, he studied violin with Ivan Galamian and chamber music with Josef Gingold.

Currently, Newman resides in Philadelphia. He teaches an orchestra repertoire class for violinists at the Curtis Institute of Music, directs the Center for Gifted Young Musicians Chamber Players Orchestra at Temple Music Prep, and is working for Play On Philly and the Settlement Music School. He looks forward to playing chamber music and teaching in the diverse communities of the city.